The Science and Environmental Health Network is working to implement the precautionary principle as a basis for
environmental and public health policy. The principle and the main components of its implementation are stated this way in the
1998 Wingspread Statement on the Precautionary Principle:

"When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken
even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically.
In this context the proponent of an activity, rather than the public, should bear the burden of proof.
The process of applying the precautionary principle must be open, informed and democratic and must include potentially
affected parties. It must also involve an examination of the full range of alternatives, including no action." - Wingspread Statement on the Precautionary Principle, Jan. 1998

The precautionary principle, virtually unknown here six years ago, is now a U.S. phenomenon. In December 2001 the New
York Times Magazine listed the
principle as one of the most influential ideas of the year, describing the intellectual, ethical, and policy framework SEHN had
developed around the principle.

In June 2003, the Board of Supervisors of the City and County of San Francisco became the first government body in the
United States to make the precautionary principle the basis for all its environmental policy.

Understanding the Role of Science in Regulation. The Wingspread Statement and the European Union in
Environmental Health Perspectives Volume 117 Number 3 March 2009.

Precautionary Principle - The Precaution Reporter

When the staff of the Science & Environmental Health Network learned that Rachel's Precaution Reporter (RPR) was slated for retirement, we knew we had to do something. RPR has been a keystone of SEHN's work on the precautionary principle, and we had a feeling that our colleagues relied on it as well.

In order to gauge reader interest, we asked RPR publisher Peter Montague if he would do a readership survey. We hoped to discover whether people were really reading and using RPR, and therefore whether we should devote our organization's resources to keep it going.

Were we surprised! Within hours of sending the survey, we were positively deluged with responses, lamenting the end of RPR, begging it to go on, relaying the specific ways activists and scholars have been using RPR in their work, and offering an outpouring of volunteer time, funding and support to keep it going. From every corner of the US as well as several other countries, devoted readers pledged their loyalty to RPR.

Well Dear Readers, we can't deny such passion! Due to popular demand from you, SEHN has decided to carry on RPR. Although noone can do it like Peter -- one of the true Godfathers of the environmental health and justice movements -- we will do our best to steer this little ship. At first SEHN will publish RPR monthly, and then depending on resources (has anyone else heard that phrase this year?) we will try to ramp up the frequency. (Unfortunately we can't pick up Rachel's Democracy and Health News too, only Rachel's Precaution Reporter.)

And meanwhile, SEHN and Rachel's have been deeply touched by your offerings of support for the work. Like all non-profits, SEHN is on pins and needles financially this year. To those of you who love RPR and offered to send $12 or $120 to support its continuation, we humbly and gratefully accept your partnership in this vital work.

The leading hands-on guide to how to use the precautionary principle in your own community. Edited by SEHN staff and featuring contributions from leading activists from around the country, this book helps you put the principle into practice.

Advancing The Precautionary Agenda
SEHN is pleased to release a new report, "Advancing The Precautionary Agenda," examining the role of the precautionary principle across sectors. The report draws a picture of shared ideas, challenges, and hopes for integrating precaution in a broad-based fashion.

Canada’s Supreme Court supports pesticide ban
"More than 70 municipalities (including Vancouver, British Columbia; Montreal, Quebec; and Halifax, Nova Scotia) have already passed bylaws prohibiting the cosmetic use of pesticides, and many more cities are poised to pass bans now that the Supreme Court has cleared the way." Early bans cited the precautionary principle.

The Science and Environmental Health Network and Environmental Research Foundation (www.rachel.org and www.precaution.org) have created The Precaution Academy to offer an intensive weekend of training to prepare participants to apply precautionary thinking to a wide range of issues in their communities and workplaces. The Academy is intended to serve the needs of citizen activists, government officials, public health specialists, small
business owners, journalists, educators, and the engaged public.

Rachel's Environment & Health News is a publication of the Environmental Research Foundation,
a clearing house of news and resources for environmental justice, which provides understandable scientific information about
human health and the environment.

Contempt For Small PlacesJune 2003By Wendell Berry, the author of "The Unsettling of America"Poet, novelist, and essayist, Wendell Berry farms in Kentucky and is a member of the Land Institute's Prairie Writers
Circle, Salina, Kansas.

The Importance of the Precautionary PrincipleDecember 9, 2001
By Michael Pollan
"For the last several decades, American society has been guided by the ''risk analysis'' model, which assesses new technologies by trying to calculate the mathematical likelihood that they will harm the public. There are other ways, however, to think about this problem. Indeed, a rival idea from Europe, the ''precautionary principle,'' has just begun making inroads in America." -excerpt

The U.S. and the Precautionary Principle: An NGO Response in the Context of the Cartagena ProtocolDecember 2000
By Nancy Myers
In this paper we outline four considerations that will help to focus implementation of the precautionary principle in the Cartagena Protocol. In the second part we offer responses to criticisms of the precautionary principle which are often presented by U.S. officials and others who support U.S. viewpoints. Such arguments have been raised in negotiations on the Protocol, as well as in recent international trade, environment, and food safety discussions. It is important to address these criticisms directly so they do not stand in the way of either a broad precautionary approach to protecting the environment and human health or specific precautionary actions taken to implement the Protocol. - excerpt NB: Due to length of the paper, the link will download the paper in Rich Text Format.

Risk Assessment and Risk ManagementSeptember 2000
The purpose of this brief is to inform and educate the layperson about risk assessment as it is currently practiced, and what it purports to achieve. Government agencies develop risk assessments to make most public policy decisions relating to public health and the environment. An understanding of its components and their bases will enable citizens to undertake critical analyses of risk assessment, and understand its current misuse, as well as the dangers of today's risk management policies. Commonly, risk assessments are used to justify hazardous practices. -excerpt

Debating the Precautionary Principle
By Nancy MyersMarch 2000
"The precautionary principle has taken center stage in a number of recent international discussions on trade, the environment, and human health. As a result, it has stirred criticism as well as interest. In these discussions and in a growing number of media reports on the principle, certain criticisms and qualifications, enumerated below, have been repeated with some frequency." -excerpt

Status and Implementation of the Precautionary PrincipleMarch, 2000By Joel Tickner and Nancy Myers
"Discussion of the role of the precautionary principle in environmental health policy has intensified in recent months, especially in the European Union and in the international arena but also in the United States and Canada. Much of this debate has been fueled by trade controversies over beef and milk containing growth hormones and over genetically modified foods. The precautionary principle dominated discussions at the recent Biosafety Protocol meeting in Montreal and was at the core of the final protocol. At last fall's World Trade Organization Ministerial meeting in Seattle, controversy swirled around the precautionary principle. The principle has been a central element in recent discussions of international food safety standards (Codex Alimentarius)." -excerpt

Pollution is Personal2000
The Massachusetts Precautionary Principle Project:
Clean Water Fund, Lowell Center for Sustainable Production, Massachusetts Breast Cancer Coalition and Science & Environmental Health Network
"Pollution is personal. Chemical pollutants are found in our breast milk and our sperm, our amniotic fluid and our fatty tissue, our blood, bone, and urine. There have been alarming increases in the incidence of certain diseases, and many of them have suspected links to environmental pollution. These diseases cannot be completely explained by other causes, and their increase mirrors the increase in toxic chemical production, use, and release. Illness is the result of a complex interaction of genetic, social and environmental factors, but we must not ignore the environmental connection.
" -excerpt

Putting Precaution into Practice1999
The Massachusetts Precautionary Principle Project:
Clean Water Fund, Lowell Center for Sustainable Production, Massachusetts Breast Cancer Coalition and Science & Environmental Health Network
"This briefing paper presents an overview of the Precautionary Principle and some components of a structure to implement the Principle in environmental health policy. The Precautionary Principle comes into play when there may be environmental or health damage and there is uncertainty as to whether the effect has or will occur and its potential magnitude. Precaution is about anticipating (the Precautionary Principle comes form the German Vorsorge, or foresight, principle) and preventing environmental health damage. It is about the best possible science for the best possible decisions that prevent harm to human health or the environment. The precautionary principle requires more, not less science than traditional decision-making methods. Decisions to invoke the precautionary principle involve different types of scientific knowledge from different fields. They require honesty about uncertainty, what is known, not known, and can be scientifically determined. " -excerpt

It is exciting to come here from Oregon to be with you, because
Massachusetts is doing some amazing things that I want to take back home.
Your coalition for a statewide Precautionary Principle Initiative is
extraordinarily exciting, and far advanced of where we are in toxics policy
in Oregon. You have a statewide clean production institute - I hope we get
one in the state of Oregon sometime within the next decade. In fact, just
this week, long-time Oregon environmental activists met for a three-day
retreat, and decided to form a statewide toxics organization, because we
have none. We have a premier statewide PESTICIDE organization, the
Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides (NCAP). We have
statewide organizations for protecting forests and rivers; for removing
four major dams to save salmon which are going extinct; for getting cows
off the national public grasslands and forests in Oregon ... but no
statewide organization for toxics. - excerpt